Mummascribbles meets…21st Century Mama – Mummascribbles

Today we meet the lovely Lora from 21st Century Mama. Thanks so much for taking park Lora

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your family.
We are a family of expatriate/repatriates, having just landed back to the UK from Dubai. Gary and I met through my step dad, who worked with him. We finally got together in 2006, a memorable day for Gary as it was the day that Ronaldo wound up Wayne Rooney in the international game and ended up with him being sent off…..

We were together for four years before Gary popped the question, something that took my completely by surprise because he swore he’d never get married. It turned out that a combination of his long haul travel to Hong Kong and my seriously hungover state when he returned home, made me irresistible and he went straight to the jewellers and purchased the most beautiful engagement ring I had ever seen.

We got married near Santa Barbara in California in 2011 – far from our Manchester home. Having dragged our nearest and dearest to the USA for our wedding, we then swiftly emigrated to Doha, Qatar. Then nine months later, when I was eight months pregnant, we did a hop, skip and a jump to Dubai, UAE.

Our daughter, Miss S was born barely a month later, and in that time we had found an apartment, furnished it, received our shipping from Qatar and bought two cars. It appears we don’t mess around.

Miss S was a champion sleeper, sleeping 12 hours a night at nine weeks, so we thought we had cracked this parenting malarkey and planned for baby number two. Mister L arrived 18 months after Miss S, and taught us that all babies are different, and that two babies is a completely different ball game to one baby.

Nearly three years in Dubai later, and an opportunity came up in Warwickshire which was too much of a good opportunity to say no to. The timing might not have been perfect (we still loved Dubai) but it was time to move on and embrace the future in the UK.

We were back in the UK for three entire days before we made an offer on a house, which has been accepted. So we are currently nomads, moving between holidays lets while the house sale goes through. So far the weather has been relatively kind and the paperwork mostly simple, so we are hoping to be in our new home before long.

The grandparents are naturally thrilled that we are back, including Gary’s parents who live in Spain. Hopefully we’ll get to see much more of them as we settle in.

What do you like doing to be you, when you are not parenting, working (if you do), or blogging?
I have spent the last twelve months trying to get into fitness, and to lose the 26kgs of baby weight I gained with Mister L. I’m at the point where I really feel that I actually enjoy circuit training, which was something I never thought I’d say! Luckily Gary is extremely fit and can push himself pretty hard, so now we’ve left Dubai we are training together while the kids are in bed.

Other than circuit training, I love wine, chocolate and reading (not that I get much chance to read at the moment).

I’m really excited to get more into cooking and gardening when we get into the new house. It was one of the draws of coming back to the UK, and I’m excited to get started. Growing our own vegetables is on the agenda, along with peonies, which are becoming my new obsession.

What is your biggest achievement to date?
Making the transition from lawyer to stay at home mum. I’m really surprised that I managed to make the transition, although it’s not been easy at all. I really struggled once Miss S turned one as I felt like I was drifting about with no purpose. I had to work hard to find that purpose. I’m definitely still not perfect and there is A LOT of work to be done, but I’m happy to say that I’m surviving and sometimes even thriving.

From your own experiences, what do you find the hardest part of parenting and what is the easiest/most rewarding part?
The hardest part of parenting is the tiredness. It never seems to go away, even when the kids sleep through. Once really early morning seems to set me back a month, and I often wonder if this tiredness will ever go away. I don’t always get to bed as early as I’d like, but we are hardly night owls.

The most rewarding part is when one of the kids does something that surprises me, and reminds me of how much they are learning every day. Miss S suddenly started counting to twenty (completely not led by me, I was in shock) and then last week she told me that the number on our table was 32 – and it was. Mister L trying to copy the actions to Wheels on the Bus or pretending to sneeze makes me giggle and realise that he’s not a baby anymore.

Parenting in itself is no mean feat; how do you juggle everything you need to in order to get everything done on a daily basis?
Sometimes I don’t. As I’m at home with the kids, it often seems pointless to do anything that resembles cleaning as it looks filthy once the kids have traipsed back through and dropped crumbs everywhere. There is a never ending to do list and piles of ironing that I often don’t get to.

I’m a really big fan of lists. I have a list of the things that need doing every day, and I tick them off as I do them. I also break down the weekly cleaning tasks into short bursts and try to do one each day.

For me, sometimes it’s too easy to get involved in the cleaning and organising and forgetting that the kids have me at home for a reason. It’s hard to stop and play, but I need to practice that more. While the kids are always looked after (fed, clothed, nappies changed), sometimes I neglect to take the time to just spend with them.

Why did you decide to start blogging?
I desperately needed a creative outlet, something that was just for me, and not for the kids. I think when I became a mother, and decided I wasn’t going back to work, I suddenly got a bit overwhelmed in looking after other people, and never doing anything for me. No one is handing out medals for keeping your own kids alive during the day. It can often feel like a never ending and thankless job.

As soon as I started blogging I felt a great weight come off my shoulders. I could have something for me, that actually was made better by the fact I was a mother. My experiences as a mother often feature on the blog, and they are often my best posts.

It’s really important to me to blog about the less exciting, and difficult challenges of being a mother, having an auto immune disease etc. I think people often feel alone in negative feelings, and don’t talk about them because facebook is full of happy smiling mums with clean and smiley children. So if my posts can make just one person feel less alone, and that they are not the only ones having bad days, then that’s wonderful.

Tell me a bit about your blog?
My blog is a parenting a lifestyle blog. I focus the blog on those things that are completely personal to me. I have an autoimmune disease, so I talk about health and lifestyle changes that specifically help my autoimmune diseases, and my ongoing progress, which can often be slow.

I talk about parenting, and how I deal with everyday parenting problems such as toddler tantrums. I want to talk about what worked, and didn’t work for us, so that other people can see where we went wrong, just as much as where we went right.

I have a monthly photography segment where I feature family and lifestyle photoshoots. Photography has a special place in my heart and we tend to have professional photographs taken once a year to properly document our family changing. Finding a great photographer can be tricky, so I try to hunt down amazing photographers to feature on the blog.

I am just about to start a linky called Thursday Troubles. This linky is for bloggers to add posts which deal with the struggles, trials and tribulations they have been through. These can range from the minor (dealing with tantrums) to the serious (post natal depression), whether you’ve managed to conquer it or not. It’s a place to accept and be open about the troubles we face, whether big or small, and to allow others to see those troubles and to see that they are not alone.

What do you want your blog to achieve and where do you hope to see it go as it grows?
I would love my blog to enable me to creative a career outside of my children, but so that I can work from home. I want to be available for my children all the time, even when they have gone to school, but to also carve a career and meet like minded people, to really challenge and push myself.

I would love to have some guest posts on my blog, but I’m still considering the area I’d like for guest posts. I’d also love to go to some of the blogging conferences and meet some of my favourite bloggers in person.

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting a blog?
Do it, and do it now. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like what you write, and want to start over. It doesn’t have to cost you any money. You can abandon it at any point if you get fed up. Writing is a huge creative outlet and blogging is an amazing place to open up and discuss things that are bothering you or challenging you. It is a great way to connect with others, even when you are stuck at home.

If you could have dinner with three people (dead or alive), who would it be and why?
1. Johnny Depp – I loved his earlier films like The Ninth Gate and Benny and Joon. I would love to talk o him about his early days in the film industry and how he managed to stand apart from the “pretty leading male” category that so many men ended up shelved in.

2. David Cameron – I love his pledge to make the NHS a true seven day service. Having been a medical regulatory lawyer, the NHS is close to my heart and I think that (while oversubscribed) it is one of the best medical systems in the world. Protecting and improving it is so important and I’d love to talk to him about the issues I saw while working in the field.

3. Judi Dench – When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an actress. I wrote to about 100 different actors, asking for advice, and she was the only one to reply. Her reply was quite stern and there was no beating about the bush, and it was so refreshing. I would love to talk to her about how the world has changed while she has been in it.

Tell me three random facts about you

1. When I was 10 I got thrown off a horse, who then stood on, and broke, all 8 of my fingers.

2. I was in a Liverpool feature film called Dead Man’s Cards with Paul Barber (Denzil from Only Fools and Horses) – it was a teeny tiny part, but I do get slapped about half way through.

3. I have texture issues. I can’t eat yoghurt with bits in, or ice cream with chocolate chips. Panacotta is the devils food!

You can find Lora over at www.the21stcenturymama.com or on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+